


A Fractured Fairy Tale

by chofi



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: 7remix Challenge, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 03:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10505436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chofi/pseuds/chofi
Summary: For the 7remix Challenge, a remix of parts of Boomchick's Cadet Series. Sephiroth identifies with Rapunzel, but a tale should change to fit with circumstances.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Boomchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomchick/gifts).



“…Rapunzel and the Prince lived happily with their family for the rest of their days.”

Sephiroth took a deep breath, sure that nothing wrong could ever happen in the world just as long as someone was telling him the story. He looked up at Dr. Gast. “Could you tell it to me again?”

Dr. Gast smiled his “I’m sorry, Seph” smile. “It’s time for you to sleep. You have a lot to do tomorrow.” Sephiroth _always_ had a lot to do tomorrow, and he _hated_ that he had a lot to do tomorrow. “Tomorrow night, all right? Once all your tests are done.” Dr. Gast got up and walked to the door.

Sephiroth turned to face the wall, wrapping himself in his blanket as tightly as he could. Seeing Dr. Gast leave always upset Sephiroth, no matter that Dr. Gast wasn’t going far. “Good night, Dr. Gast,” Sephiroth mumbled.

“Good night, Sephiroth.”

The door closed, and the locks slid into place.

Staring at the wall, Sephiroth told himself the story again, working at it so that it sounded right.

_Once upon a time, there was a kind woman named Jenova who wanted a son very much, and one day she had one: a boy with silver hair and blue eyes. She loved him very much and named him Sephiroth. In her joy, her heart broke and she died._

_In the same town as Jenova and Sephiroth there lived an evil sorcerer. The sorcerer hated everyone and everything, yet wanted to take possession of the baby Sephiroth for his own purposes. He named himself Sephiroth’s godfather and took him away, placing the baby in a tall, lonely tower in the mountains. The tower was all that Sephiroth knew and could remember._

_There were all manner of books to read and lessons to learn in the tower. There were other sorcerers who came in and out, aiding Sephiroth’s godfather in his work. Soon Sephiroth was made to learn some of the work and was tested on it. The days and weeks and months passed in the tower, each the same as the ones before._

Sephiroth hadn’t seen Dr. Gast in months. He knew that the doctor was on a research trip of some sort, and those could take a long time. But how long was “a long time”?

He took a deep breath. He looked at the back of the man preparing a needle on the other side of the room. “Dr. Hojo,” Sephiroth said evenly, “have you heard anything from Dr. Gast?”

Dr. Hojo turned to face him, needle in hand. “Dr. Gast died two months ago. Now, hold out your arm for this injection.”

The needle was thick and filled with some sort of evil-looking thing—like always—but Sephiroth didn’t feel it.

_As Sephiroth grew and was taught and was tested, he began wishing for a way to leave the tower. The sorcerer, however, would never let him go. The tall, lonely tower had no doors, no stairs, and only one window too high off the ground for any little boy. Around the tower, the sorcerer had used his arts to make an impassible forest of thorns grow, fed by lakes of poison. There was no escape._

Hojo introduced the two others as “Hollander’s boys”. This earned a glare from the smaller one, and the glare was calmed by a touch on the shoulder by the larger one. Hojo spun on his heel and left them alone.

 “I’m Angeal Hewley,” said the taller one. His voice was soft and low, almost like how some of the lab assistants talked to the animal specimens at feeding times. Angeal Hewley held out his hand. Sephiroth looked at it for a moment before reaching to clasp it. After a moment, Angeal pulled his hand away.

“I’m Genesis Rhapsodos,” said the other in a crisp, clear voice. Genesis Rhapsodos did not hold out his hand. Sephiroth only recognized it as the cut it was once he interacted with others more.

_The sorcerer, at last, revealed his purpose: Sephiroth was to be made into a tool of war. Swordplay and strategy were added to the lessons and tests. Added as well were two others, also to be honed in the same way as he: boys who had grown entwined together, like the branches of a dumbapple tree. These two boys, though they had their thorns, had not been fed by lakes of poison and so grew more like rose trees. The one who was rose-red was Genesis. The one who had hair of ebony was Angeal._

_The boys fought with each other, and they fought together. They trained and were taught and were tested together. They grew up, and they grew close._

_Like the forest of thorns surrounding the tower, they became bound together. Like the forest of thorns surrounding the tower, they became fixed where they grew._

The first one that Sephiroth had left behind had been the hardest: that one had had a face.

The face had also screamed; senseless noises of pain and desperation that died down as Sephiroth stepped away. It wasn’t only putting distance between himself and the face that made the noise fade, Sephiroth was sure of it. The face and the body it was attached to were fading from weakness. Sephiroth had seen the wounds. Too many for the face to last much longer.

The casualties were still within the bounds of acceptable losses.

The noises died. The face became faceless, unknown, no one.

_The boys were tools of war, it’s true, but valuable tools. They left the tower to fight men and monsters both. They led others, and were loved by others. They saw the world, but did not escape into it._

_If they weren’t cosseted, they were at least well maintained. They were honed and improved, polished and oiled._

_But all tools break eventually._

Angeal was dead, felled by his protégé.

Genesis was still alive, somewhere, hating Sephiroth for what he was.

“I want to be alone for a bit,” Zachary said. “I need some time to think about things.”

Sephiroth let him be. He didn’t think on how long “some time” would be. Only children did that.

_Living things could not live on poison alone, lest they become poisoned themselves. The thorns that grew around the tower had drunk deep of the poisoned lakes about them. They curled around the hearts of the boys-now-men, making poison, making monsters._

_The thorns worked first into Genesis’s heart, warping rivalry into jealousy into rage. He used the fog of war to pull away from Angeal and Sephiroth._

_The poison worked next at Angeal’s body, warping arms and hands into wings and fangs. Genesis called, and he answered, pulling away from Sephiroth._

_Angeal’s squire-made-knight went off to other lands, to mediate, to mourn, to make his own name as a hero._

_The tall tower was lonely once again. The days and weeks and months passed, each the same as the ones before._

Sephiroth answered his phone without bothering to check who was calling.

“Sephiroth,” came Zachary’s voice. “I need your help with something. It’s about Cloud. You remember Cloud, right? Cloud Strife?”

Sephiroth was to help by writing and speaking about the world as he knew it and making sure that Cloud learned the lesson.  As he and Zachary watched a movie, waiting for Cloud to wake up again, Sephiroth realized that “some time” may have come to an end.

_“I feared for him, and so I couldn’t leave him,” said the bright, foolish boy, squire to the squire that Angeal once had._

_“We were made to be alone,” Sephiroth said, a lesson learned by rote, by deeds done to him, by deeds he had done to others. ”We are not healers, nor are we the heroes of song. Our charge is to do what is demanded of us, until we die.”_

Thirty-five bullets.

Thirty-five bullets, and internal bleeding besides. He was alone, just as he was made to be.

Sephiroth had accepted that there would be no help coming. Gast hadn’t, Angeal and Genesis couldn’t, Zack—he was sure—wouldn’t. He did what had been demanded of him, and now he was to die.

He couldn’t stand. He didn’t want to stand, so he sat.

A lonely child huddled in his blanket would have clumsily woven a tale of the world as it should be to put himself to sleep. Instead, the tool of war called to mind nothingness.

Nothingness, and then a voice. Stubborn. Tenacious.

_The bright, foolish boy was near dying, using the arts that Sephiroth had learned but was too weary to use now. It was an amplification, a reflection, of a spell used before when Sephiroth had had to teach this boy the truth of the world. “But why did you come here?” Sephiroth demanded of him. “I was made to be alone.”_

_“I feared for you,” said the bright, foolish boy, “and so I can’t leave you.” The boy held on to him. Stubbornly. Tenaciously._

_The boy holds on to him still._

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo, boy, was this an adventure. I thought that I knew what I wanted to write, but as I reread the bits of the Cadet Series that I wanted to take in, "Overdose" spoke to me (probably because I was reading it while waiting for the doctor) and my brain said that a fairy tale retelling would be an excellent idea. Other things jumped in as well, and it's a bit experimental.
> 
> I hope you like it, Boomchick.


End file.
